What is America?
Today’s theme is Providence and nations.
One of the under-explored aspects of the Gospel is that it implies groups are real. Whereas the Old Testament was almost all about the group, Israel, with individuals being almost secondary. And the New Testament was all about the individual salvation (modern reading) or at least about rejecting all other groups to form one ‘ur’-group, the Church (ancient reading). Whosoever shall leave father or mother…
The full gospel synthesises these perspectives. There is individual salvation occurring in the context of family exaltation, with lineages and nations having their own purposes and character.
Including America. As per various scriptures and the recent preaching on religious freedom, America and American characteristics are in some sense an operation of Providence.
So what is America?
A national soul is even fuzzier than gender is, and that is hard enough to pin down. But lets have a shot.
Americans are ambitious, agentic, optimistic. Very WEIRD. Idealistic and religious but not metaphysical or mystical or symbolic or ritualistic. High trust. Prone to self-organization. Sentimental. Genial. A bit shallow. A bit uncultured, unsophisticated, and naive. A bit juvenile. Neither indigenous nor immigrant, but settler. Along a lot of dimensions, the least European of all Europeans, and the most European of all non-European. Along other dimensions, more European than even the Europeans.
Americans are the product of a land. Wide open, still relatively unsettled, harsh, and beautiful.
Americans are a heritage and a history, all those who are the descendants by blood or spirit or both of those groups who set foot in Virginia in 1607, Plymouth Rock in 1620, and nurtured by a hundred streams, mainly English and British but not all, forged in Indian wars and then the revolutions, and who then went all the way to the sea.
Sute
July 3, 2026
I’ll do you one better. Why is America?
G.
July 3, 2026
That is a question that has an answer and I would be interested in yours
but things and people and peoples exist for themselves, they aren’t all purpose
Zen
July 5, 2026
There are many nations and peoples, all with their own purpose.
There are ways this can be toxic and adversarial, or it can be synergistic and awesome. I don’t want France to be China. I don’t want Columbia to be Sweden. I don’t want Brazil to be Thailand. They all have their strengths and beauties.
Since this is the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, I will hazard a prediction. We have some rough days ahead that are prophesied.
But in the future, we will use the original flag with 13 stars, because we will have too many stars to put them all in the flag. I would like to see North, South and Central America all willingly and excitedly join the US. The United States of America will cover everything from Argentina to the Yukon, from the Caribbean to Guam & Oceana.
We are just getting started.
Sute
July 5, 2026
The easy answer modern historians grasp at for “why America” is uppidy colonial land owners were frustrated they had just enough power, but not enough to be meaningful and resented the crown, nobility, aristocracy and so on, and wanted to be in charge.
I’ll grant that to be one dimension of what’s happening, but that fact is without a doubt true everywhere any system of government has ever existed. Why this one worked is the principles behind it were true in the most fundamental sense. You don’t build an enduring largely self governing system on greed and self interest alone.
The underlying truth that speaks to why America is as simply and profoundly stated in the declaration. We hold these truths to be self evident that All men are created equal….
From that foundation, America has its Why.
If my thesis is correct, to the extent we continue to embody that, we will endure. As we depart from it, we lay the foundation for our demise.